ed it would. In proof thereof she
received during April a feminine committee of two from Vancouver bearing
an offer of three hundred dollars for her appearance in a series of
three concerts under the auspices of the Woman's Musical Club, to be
given in the ballroom of Vancouver's new million-dollar hostelry, the
Granada. The date was mid-July. She took the offer under advisement,
promising a decision in ten days.

The money tempted her; that was her greatest need now,--not for her
daily bread, but for an accumulated fund that would enable her to reach
New York and ultimately Europe, if that seemed the most direct route to
her goal. She had no doubts about reaching it now. Confidence came to
abide with her. She throve on work; and with increasing salary, her fund
grew. Coming from any other source, she would have accepted this further
augmentation of it without hesitation, since for a comparative beginner,
it was a liberal offer.

But Vancouver was Fyfe's home town; it had been hers. Many people knew
her; the local papers would feature her. She did not know how Fyfe would
take it; she did not even know if there had been any open talk of their
separation. Money, she felt, was a small thing beside opening old sores.
For herself, she was tolerably indifferent to Vancouver's social
estimate of her or her acts. Nevertheless, so long as she bore Fyfe's
name, she did not feel free to make herself a public figure there
without his sanction. So she wrote to him in some detail concerning the
offer and asked point-blank if it mattered to him.

His answer came with uncanny promptness, as if every mail connection had
been made on the minute.

"If it is to your advantage to sing here," he wrote, "by all means
accept. Why should it matter to me? I would even be glad to come and
hear you sing if I could do so without stirring up vain longings and
useless regrets. As for the other considerations you mention, they
are of no weight at all. I never wanted to keep you in a glass case.
Even if all were well between us, I wouldn't have any feeling about
your singing in public other than pride in your ability to command
public favor with your voice. It's a wonderful voice, too big and
fine a thing to remain obscure.

"JACK."

He added, evidently as an afterthought, a somewhat lengthy postscript:

"I wish you would do something next month, not as a favor to me
particularly, but to ease thin